These events are not simply a response to the ‘neoliberalism’ which it is fashionable for left-liberals like to denounce (subtext: if only we could ditch those nasty Tories and install a more clement, democratic system of exploitation, then everything would be alright). Rather, they represent the death throes of the moribund system of capitalism. As the signs of social decomposition become harder to ignore, we should be very clear that the future offers, as Rosa Luxemburg postulated, only two possibilities: socialism or barbarism. The anti-social aspects of these riots, and the response to them by right-wing ‘vigilante’ groups, give us a glimpse of what that second possibility might look like: a Hobbesian war of each against all, fueled by racism and nationalism and leading to what Marx and Engels, in one of their gloomier moments, called the ‘mutual ruination of the contending classes’.I think the big question is: will we allow the capitalist system to degrade society into barbarism, or will we act in an intelligent, organized fashion to destroy the system and replace it with a system that sustains societies?
in the time remaining, to help us understand how the man-made system of capitalism will lead to the extinction of our human species, and so many others.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Driving People into Rebellion
Click here to access article by Stephen Harper from Dissident Voice.